Ok, i bought a Anthlon that says it was a 2500 on it and they guy said he ran it at 3200 (anthlons last i knew ran a lot lower then what they say) so i build my pc with it and it says its defualt is 3200 and is running at 2.19GHz Was the label wrong because the defualt says its a 3200 ..its clocked at 200 can't go in bios for more info...just wondering and wonderin if other people have anthlons run lower then what they say.
Thanks, Nic

Some time ago AMD decided they could not compete in the market with Intel based on actual clock speeds, so they started to label their processors based on the perceived clock speed - in other words, they claimed their slower CPUs could compete with Intel's faster clock speed CPUs (and in some cases that is true). The problem was (and still is to some extent), back then folks saw speed on the tag as the primary indicator of power and so it was a marketing decision to relabel their CPUs.

So AMD felt their 1.83GHz Athlon CPUs could compete with Intel's 2.5GHz CPUs to they labeled it the Athlon XP 2500+. Likewise, their 2.2GHz CPU is labeled as the AMD Athlon XP 3200+. So looks like you got an Athlon XP 3200+ (a fine CPU, by the way!) and it is running at 2.2GHz (or darn close to that). It is possible the guy who claimed it was running at 3.2 was overclocking it - or maybe was stretching the truth, or just did not know what he was talking about.

Two things that confuse/concern me however, (1) You say it says 2500 on the CPU - do you mean the factory printed label says 2500? If so, that's confusing because the Athlon XP 2500+ is, as I said above, a 1.83GHz CPU. (2) Of bigger concern to me is that you can't you access the BIOS - why not? What happens when you try? What motherboard do you have? Although the 200 sounds right as it will be multiplied (doubled) as necessary, but you should still be able to access the BIOS.

Ok, now i get it :/ i forgot they put that + which would make it easier to understand. Its factory label is 2500 and the windows that says 3200+ LOL its a "2500+" so it should say 2500, but i went in bios and messed with sumthin and messed it up, cleared cmos and now i got it at 166 and it says its runnin at 1.83 (lol) Celerons, never overheat and say what they are im use to that, they got bigger cache and most people don't understand. My other computer is a 1.4 at 1.62 512 cache...i think 1.4 is the biggest i can go. The board that has the 3200 is a Gagabyte K7 Trition 7N400 Pro, kamakazi heatsink (those are hard to put on took me and my dad) , but it has a speed adjuster for the fan lol so that makes me have a happy trinqet (I'm 13). Well thanks for answerin i think i was on the track a year ago then gave up because it was stupid of amd to pull that. oh, and im from Nebraska too.

This post has been edited by Nicholas777: Dec 27 2007, 11:09 AM

Well the AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton is a 1.83GHz CPU and runs at 333MHz (2 X 166) so your FSB is set correctly. I don't know why Windows would say 3200. You can verify the CPU with CPUz.

Well, I am not "from" Nebraska - the Air Force sent me here in 1986 and, like many, I just stayed - so it's home now.

aloght, yeah i know cpuz somewhat and i meant -I live in nebraska my whole life, he he

Well, my dad was career Air Force too so I have lived in many places in the US and overseas too, and I can say from experience that Nebraska is a good place to live - as long as you can put up with the bitter cold - which fortunately does not last too long.

coming from an AMD Barton 2500+ owner i can confirm that this is one powerful little CPU. Its had one since it came out and am only now thinking of changing to something more powerful to cope with the ever increasing performance. I've not seen one sold as new for quite some time. normally you can get the 2800+ or 3000+ sempron (equivalent to intel's celeron chips) from most major suppliers. When the 2500+(333Mhz FSB) came out the top end chip was the 3200+ Barton (400Mhz FSB). It was then that most of the overclockers found that the cheeper 2500+ could be overclocked to that of a 3200+ easily and stabally (in most cases). It sounds to me that the person you have bought the chip off did just this and to be honest if you set your FSB to 400Mhz it should overclock quite nicely Do an internet search on this subject and you should find plenty of information on how to do it safely, or if your not a speed freak, leave it running at 1.833Ghz and you should have a nice little system that should keep running for some time yet!

I agree that 2500+ Barton is a sweet CPU - I still have a couple machines chugging along with that CPU. I personally don't advise overclocking any electronics unless you are prepared for, and willing to accept total destruction of your CPU, and possibly motherboard, RAM, and even the graphics card. Too many times have PCs come across my bench where the user did not do his homework, did not adequately address the adding cooling requirements for the CPU AND the surrounding and associated components, did not consider increased current conditions, and fried his system. And it amazes me how many of these folks use those same computers for critical tasks, such as school, work, and financial projects - and of course, most folks do not backup their data.

Overclocking is a hobby. There is always a risk, even when all precautions are taken. It should never be done on a production machine.